


The Way That Were Done To Me

by TenTonParasol



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Animal Death, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Gen, The nature of the sea is to consume. And that has very little to do with certain demigods actually., canon typical Fjord coughs up things he really shouldn't be coughing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25603324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenTonParasol/pseuds/TenTonParasol
Summary: Sometimes, Fjord's dreams were his own. Sometimes, those dreams allowed a confrontation on terms in his favor. Sometimes, to do things in the way that were done to him didn't weigh so heavy on his conscience.
Relationships: Fjord & Uk'otoa (Critical Role)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	The Way That Were Done To Me

The landscape rarely differed, even when the dreams were his own. Fjord found himself on a beach alongside a sea so deep and wide it could swallow anything whole. This. This was as it always was.

The waters were dark tonight, but he felt comfortable here in the deepest moment of night. The light of a full moon and all the stars reflected across the black waves like diamond dust, and a familiar wind gently caressed his cheek and left the well-loved taste of home on his lips.

He sat a handful of feet from the surf, listening to the water sigh its affection for the shore and finding his breathing falling into that same rhythm. Whisper, break, hush. Whisper, break, hush. He followed that unchanging cadence for an age. Breathe. And breathe.

Whisper.

Break.

His breath caught on a sharp pain low in his chest.

He inhaled hissing through his teeth. The pain ripped through his chest again, sharper and deeper, then he felt liquid filling his lungs. He doubled over, gasping hard for air but choking even harder on it. Blood came up his throat, and it tasted as much salt as iron.

He coughed it into the sand, then coughed again, and still again. He coughed up blood until the sand grew black as the water, but there was always more. He gasped and choked until it sounded like he was sobbing too. Maybe he was. The pain still clawed into his chest.

He clenched his jaw tight and pressed both hands over his mouth. His lungs kicked, he tasted more blood, but he fought. He forced himself to swallow. He couldn't. There was something else in his throat.

He dropped his hands and retched hard.

What he spit out was long, and slender, and living.

It darted toward the sea, but he grabbed it in a fistful of wriggling flesh and reddened sand. What he held was a snake, black with three yellow eyes on his head.

It lunged at his neck, but he closed his hand around its throat.

He drew a startled breath.

He realized he _could_ draw a breath.

He sighed deeply just to inhale into the bottom of his lungs. It was painless. He laughed softly in relief and wiped his mouth and cheeks with the back of his free hand. Exhaustion quickly settled in, but he felt calm, and he breathed steady again.

Slick though it was in his blood, he held the small snake secure with his fingers firm around the base of its head. Eyes opened along its body, all that familiar yellow, and it bared its fangs in threat. He simply pressed his thumb up under its throat and forced its jaws shut.

It glared ineffective menace at him. He considered it for a moment, then tightened his grip.

Then tighter, and tighter.

Slowly, until he felt its ribs breaking under his fingers. Its eyes went wide until they were more black than yellow, and it thrashed wildly against his hold. He clicked his tongue and grabbed its tail with his other hand. He held its body taut, like a particularly insolent length of rope.

He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

This thing had been in his head and inside his heart. It already knew everything in there. Or, should've.

If the warning signs went unheeded, he was not to blame.

He adjusted his thumb under its jaw. Quickly—snap.

The tide was coming in.

Gently, inevitably, relentlessly pulling the beach into a sea so deep and wide it devoured everything whole.


End file.
